


(Nearly) Indestructible

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Series: The Pacemakers [22]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Angst and Feels, Annoyance, Being Lost, Confessions, Emotional Baggage, Emotionally Repressed, Eventual Happy Ending, Getting to Know Each Other, Loneliness, Major Character Injury, Mid-Canon, Pace-Mates, Recklessness, Self-Esteem Issues, Stranded, Suspicions, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 10:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4217964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt - "Trying to sleep/recharge in a very uncomfortable place"</p><p>Trailbreaker has run out of gas far, far away from home, and he's certain he's failed his injured passenger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Nearly) Indestructible

**Author's Note:**

> Pace - A company or herd of mules; in headcanon, a family of Minibots, due to their charming natures
> 
> The headcanon for Minibot paces comes from inkand_paper, though I adopted and adapted it for my own purposes :D

 

If he were to be completely honest, Trailbreaker should have known this would happen. He had consumed too much fuel in too little time and had run out of gas…in the middle of the desert.

“It’s not too bad. In fact, it’s a nice night,” he said, forcing a cheerful tone even in the midst of his panic. Everything he had been hiding from the others about himself, it was true. He was a liability for this _exact_ reason.

“Tell it to someone who cares,” Cliffjumper sighed. “I would be halfway home by now if it wasn’t for _this_.”

Trailbreaker tried to ignore his companion’s sour demeanor, but it was easy to see why he was so irritated. The ‘this’ Cliffjumper was referring to was a puddle of energon currently amassing on Trailbreaker’s floor mats around the Minibot’s foot.

Not too many joors earlier, Cliffjumper had lived up to his name, quite literally leaping into thin air when he thought he’d seen Laserbeak’s silhouette. It turned out to be one of the Earth’s flying animals and Cliffjumper had been left with a twisted leg, unable to walk. Trailbreaker had offered to give him a ride and though Cliffjumper had been reluctant to accept, he eventually had. Trailbreaker had _finally_ felt useful.

Except now his tank, fuel gutter that it was, had been left dry and they were unable to drive. Trailbreaker didn’t trust himself to transform with Cliffjumper in his backseat, lest he warp the other’s injury further.

“Well, if you don’t want to enjoy the night, you should rest up,” Trailbreaker suggested.

A long moment of silence, and then Cliffjumper muttered something underneath his vents.

“What? Speak up, will ya?”

“I can’t recharge in here,” Cliffjumper said quickly. “It’s uncomfortable. There’s a crick right in the middle of my back where I can’t get to it because of these funky seats you have.”

Trailbreaker was hurt by this comment, but habitually he tucked it away with the rest of his self-confidence issues. He had a sneaking suspicion that his seat shape wasn’t why Cliffjumper couldn’t—or wouldn’t—recharge. Whatever the reason, Cliffjumper still repositioned himself so his back was flat on the seats, hissing as he gingerly propped his distorted foot onto the inner sill of the window. Trailbreaker suppressed a protest about how constricting this felt to him. Who knew what damage an angry Minibot could inflict on the _inside_ of another Cybertronian? He could just imagine Cliffjumper using his other foot to kick the window out if he got too peeved.

“So,” Trailbreaker ventured again, “what do you and your pace talk about when you can’t recharge?”

That brought Cliffjumper up onto his elbows. “Why do you want to know?” he asked warily.

Silently Trailbreaker cursed himself, wondering if he’d struck a tender spot somewhere behind the nearly indestructible Minibot armor. Feigning familiar nonchalance, he replied, “Well, who knows how long we’re going to be out of communications range?”

“Not like you can move us any closer,” Cliffjumper grumbled.

Another sting of failure which Trailbreaker pushed aside in favor of agreeing, “Exactly. If I can’t move and you can’t recharge, we may as well talk. What do you and your pace talk about when you can’t recharge?”

There was a pause and then Cliffjumper admitted, “We don’t usually have that problem. We stay up late, which makes it easier to fall into recharge. The only time we can’t recharge is if one of us is hurt or has nightmares.”

Trailbreaker hummed thoughtfully before questioning with a hint of hesitance, “So you’d probably be keeping them up right now with that foot, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeh,” Cliffjumper confirmed, surprising warmth in his voice. “In fact, they’re probably trying to convince Prime to let them search for me.”

Trailbreaker mulled this over. “What are those nights usually like?”

“When it’s an injury night, we’ll usually get some high-grade energon and tell stories,” Cliffjumper explained. “Stuff about our lives on Cybertron, before we knew each other. Sometimes Bee asks Brawn to explain how he met each of us and invited us into the pace.”

“And…for the nightmares?” Trailbreaker prompted. He had suffered more than a few, most about Prime trusting him with some important task—one which he would royally scrap and end up getting someone killed. More often than not it was his partner and best friend, but occasionally the cost was Prime himself.

“On those nights, we—” Cliffjumper hesitated for a good series of kliks. “We just kinda hang together. On the berth, on the floor, sitting up, lying down, it doesn’t matter. We’re just together. Fraggit, I can’t describe how it happens. It just _does_. If he wants to share, he does, and if he doesn’t, then that’s that. We may be pace-mates, but we don’t like to pry.”

“Having pace-mates sounds nice…”

“I could never understand why other Cybertronians didn’t have that custom,” Cliffjumper declared. “All you bigger frames seem so damaged on your own.”

Before he quite realized what he was doing, Trailbreaker acted on the defensiveness Cliffjumper’s statement had brought. “And you Minibots _aren’t_ damaged? No, of course not. You can take any blow without a scratch, can’t you?”

“Don’t be stupid; you know we aren’t perfect!” Cliffjumper shot back, his own hackles shooting upright. “Why do you think Gears is so paranoid about squeaky pulleys?! In the past, he wasn’t never able to be anything but happy _all the time_ ; if a fraggin’ building fell on him, he’d say he was chipper as could be! Huffer is so depressed because he was practically _tortured_ by his old construction team; they physically forced him to do the work of six mechs for them and none of it ever seemed good enough. They only fueled him enough to keep going.”

Trailbreaker was already regretting his words, but when he tried to interrupt, Cliffjumper sped on.

“Brawn had another pace once and who knows how, but he lost them. Everyone in his life abandoned him; they thought of him as some weak, disgusting _thing_. He’s clingy and plays himself up so he’ll never be seen like that again. Windcharger is full of loose screws because of how many times his magnetism was taken for granted; he was a _show_ to the people around him up until he overloaded and then there was no one to drag him home, much less treat his burns. And Bee? Why do you think he’s always reaching out, always cheerful and always wanting to do anything someone says? Because he’ll _die_ if he’s neglected like he was as a sparkling. He nearly died then and if he’s left alone, he just might now.”

Swallowing uneasily at the last example, which had hit a little too close to home, Trailbreaker murmured, “And what about you?”

Something flashed over Cliffjumper’s face that Trailbreaker didn’t quite catch. At last the red Minibot sighed deeply. “I don’t trust people. That screw-up with Mirage made that obvious. I can’t even tell you how many people shot me from behind, sometimes literally, and every time I got taken like a sweet little turbopuppy.” Barking a cold laugh, Cliffjumper shook his helm. “Not anymore. Best to keep everyone away from me cos if you plan on stabbing me in the back, I’ll stab you first.”

“But isn’t that completely opposite of being in a pace?” Trailbreaker asked, quite confused.

“That was an accident,” Cliffjumper countered. “At the time I didn’t realize what they were asking. They sent _’Charger_ to ask me and he doesn’t exactly have the patience to explain in detail. But…somehow these guys got closer than anyone else, so I threw everything to the Pit and gave the idea of a pace one last chance. And now I…”

Trailbreaker strained his audials as Cliffjumper’s optics flickered around the inside of the alt. mode, seeming to test whether or not this was a safe place for a confession.

 _It is, it is! Please trust me_ , Trailbreaker silently begged.

“Now I can’t recharge without knowing they’re around me,” Cliffjumper finally sighed.

A loud string of honking startled Trailbreaker, who flicked on his headlights to see a green and gray Land Rover bouncing over the desert bluffs toward them. Trailbreaker honked back, a real smile present in his voice as he replied, “Looks like you won’t have to.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first time writing Trailbreaker, but I think I did a pretty good job? I hope so! Please comment and tell me what you thought ;)


End file.
